EKGs
These are beautiful, beautiful things. I am amazed how the slightest bump can mean something very significant. I have an enormous appreciation for modern technology and whoever spent the time figuring out what exactly every single little wave meant. If you are unfamiliar with EKGs. Here is a normal one.
That my friends, is a beautiful EKG. Now, here's one of someone having a bad heart attack.
Here's an extremely dangerous rhythm called v-tach. Or ventricular tachycardia.
Here's one with a pacemaker.
These are some of the basics. Every single wave on an EKG can mean something. For example, if the QRS in leads I and aVF are both positive, there's no axis deviation. But if aVF is negative, there is left axis deviation. Another cool one is that if the R wave in V1 and either V5 or V6 are greater than 35mm, there is left ventricular hypertrophy. The cool thing is, I can understand a lot of this! I am so far from being able to read one on my own, but I've definitely come a long way. If you ever want to have an in-depth conversation about EKGs or the heart's electrical conduction, hit me up. :)
Cool Procedures
-Frozen Elephant Trunk- no joke. This is an actual procedure. And it's almost what it sounds like! They 'freeze' you and then put in a prosthesis that looks like an elephant trunk. Cool huh!? It's used to treat aortic aneurysms (ballooning of the vessels in the aorta).
-Radio frequency ablations. I can't remember if I've talked about these before or not. This is a very common procedure on our floor. Basically, there are parts of the heart that are being overactive. They are firing electrical signals at the wrong times. In this procedure, they go in and actually burn the tissue in the heart that is misfiring. I don't know how they actually know which tissue is misbehaving, but it's pretty amazing what they can do.
-Cochlear implants. This isn't heart related, but I had a patient who had gone completely deaf due to medications (nurses! make sure you give meds correctly!). He received a cochlear device that he would put on his ear in order to hear. It's not a hearing aid- it doesn't just amplify sound. It was like a little star trekky machine that went on the ear that enabled him to hear. It was super cool.
-Putting in Pacemakers. Again, I might have mentioned this before, but man technology is cool. We can put in a little machine as big as a flip phone that can detect the heart's activity, monitor it, and do it's job for it if necessary. A lot of the time, the pacemakers don't have to 'pace' unless the heart fails to send the correct signals. However, for some people, their pacemaker supplies all of the electrical activity. It's amazing.
-CABG. In this procedure, they replace and refigure some of the coronary arteries so that they get good blood flow.
NCLEX
This has nothing to do with Mayo Clinic, but my clinical coach lent me a review book for the NCLEX (the test nurses take to be certified). This is a little insight to what nurses go through after school. This test is like none other. As you do better, the questions get harder. Therefore, if you feel like you don't know any of the questions and you feel like you're failing, you're probably doing well. There are many select all that apply questions. It's not based on knowledge. It's application of the knowledge that they're assuming you already have. In short, the test is rude. It is the perfect way to drive perfectionists absolutely crazy.
Ok, enough with the boring stuff. I know the reason I read blogs is because I want the nitty gritty details of people's lives. Well here you go.
-I worked this weekend. It was good! I definitely prefer days. Here's the thing about weekends though. On my floor, most of our patients come in for procedures that are scheduled. They stay for a night or two and then go home. What this translates to is that the people who are left on our floor during the weekends are usually the ones that are really sick and can't go home. Some of my patients this weekend were really sick people. Here are some excerpts of experiences that I've had over the past week.
-We had a patient who had extremely severe pulmonary hypertension. It was so bad that she actually had a negative reaction to the medications usually used to treat it. Pulmonary hypertension is a terrible disease and the prognosis is not good. This poor woman was going through so much. She had a reaction to some medications and had a terrible rash all over her body. She was in so much pain. Also, her husband was there and I think that he was in more pain than she was. It was heart wrenching to watch them. I don't think that there was anything the doctors could really do either.
-I had a patient who had extreme COPD (a respiratory disorder). She wasn't that old, but she literally could not walk to the door of her room without becoming extremely short of breath. She was proud of herself when she made it to the bathroom. Can you imagine living for years with a disease that doesn't let you do anything? When sitting up knocks you out of breath?
-There was a man who had a medical history a page long. He was complicated. His wife was there, and I honestly think that she probably knew more about nursing than I do. She had been taking care of him so extensively, she knew exactly what she was talking about. Her dedication was beautiful to see.
-One man came in for chest pain. He had short term memory loss and was from New York with a very brusque attitude. We had some hilarious conversations.
-There was a lady that was pretty young. She had many heart problems, so she had been functioning for years with very little oxygen. When I say very little oxygen, I'm saying that you or I would have been passed out on the floor, but she went to work every day with blue lips. After her procedure, she had a number of complications, but she felt so much better than she had before. It was amazing because the other nurses and I were really sympathetic towards her cause she was going through a lot. However, to her, it was actually better. She was a tough cookie.
-I had a patient who had a severe heart attack. He blamed his wife. He said that the cake that she had made him had too much fat in it and that had given him a heart attack. She was in tears. We reassured her again and again that it wasn't her fault. It takes more than a cake to cause a heart attack. We spent more time talking to her than the actual patient.
-There was a patient who I had taken care of earlier this summer. I walked into his room this week and he was crying because the nursing home where his wife was wouldn't take him. He would be living separately from his wife for the first time in 62 years. I didn't know what to do but sit there and hold his hand.
-Overall, this week was really good. I got to see a lot of things that went beyond the cardiac side of things. I saw situations that looked pretty hopeless, but also situations that were full of hope.
Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! I say: The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him. Lamentations 3:22-24
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